


after the mausoleum

by fallencrest



Category: Mob City
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1659605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/fallencrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Ben Siegel dead in the ground, Rothman and Stax start an uneasy sort of an alliance and no-one is more surprised than they are that it <i>works</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	after the mausoleum

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure Linn's inbox is the only place that's seen this before. Happy Mob City Monday!

There was nothing routine about it, the thing they had going: the lawyer and the right-hand man. They'd fallen into patterns nonetheless though, accepted variations on the familiar theme. My place or yours, someone else's, neutral ground. A late night call from a payphone a time or two, not a question, just "I'm coming over." It might have been business but it hadn't been, not those times. But Ned had made sure he was presentable just to be sure. 

Benny might have known, normally knew when Sid had a thing going on, but he hadn't said anything. Likely, knowing Benny, he was too wrapped up in all his Vegas shit to care. Besides, Sid had long had the impression that Benny found his affairs distasteful, regardless of who they were with. Benny was dead now though, a foregone conclusion, no more questions to be asked, no more ignorance to be feigned. The lawyer was alive, Sid was alive, and Mickey Cohen was taking on Benny's mantel, like he thought he'd deserved it all along. Now that, that was distasteful.

"If I were you, I'd get yourself a new assignment," Sid said, night before Benny's funeral, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette, all signs pointing toward a reluctance to leave.

"You and I both know you don't go asking for a new assignment, not from the senate. You take what you're given and you're thankful for it."

Sid's smile was sharp when he looked back at Ned, Ned who was still lying there like he didn't plan on moving anytime soon. One day he'd give the kid credit for the brains he clearly had but it didn't seem like that day had come just yet. 

"You can stay, you know," Ned said, "Unless you got somewhere better to be." 

Sid huffed out something like a laugh, thought about going home and didn't much like the idea of it, didn't much like the sound of the rain outside either. But sleeping over wasn't much of a reason to stay and it had never been his style. "Reckon you'll be up for another round?" He asked, because that'd be an excuse and just about the distraction he needed.

The spark of intent in Sid's eye when he said that drew a crooked smile from Ned, a quirk of the eyebrows and an "I could be." And he shifted, sat up enough to pull Sid down with him.  
It was a good excuse to stay.

 

Ned was, well, Ned surprised him in a way Sid didn't normally like to be surprised. He was more competent than most of the lawyers they hired and he had a mind for the life, an understanding of how other people thought, how he could move amongst them, make things go their way. Sid didn't always like it, sometimes felt Ned was a little too sure of himself, but his plans almost always paid off. It was a damn good thing Ned really wasn't planning on betting at Benny's casino because everything the kid touched seemed to turn to gold and more money was something that casino couldn't afford to lose. 

Still, it wasn't really as easy as all that. It wasn't easy talking Mickey Cohen down from things. Often, even between the two of them, they couldn't keep Mickey from doing some crazy, ignorant shit. That was Mickey though, that was the guy they were working for. They agreed on Mickey in a way they never had about Benny: Sid and Benny had history and Ned was just Benny's new flash business lawyer, a tool for him to use to get out of a tight spot. Mickey didn't care much for either one of them, beyond their being useful, and neither Sid nor Ned respected Mickey beyond a certain necessary point. 

It put them in a corner together, a sort of alliance where they tried to tame Mickey a little, tried to fix it between them so that Mickey'd always win, whether through the means Mickey wanted employed or through some of their own. Instead of working each on either side of Benny's business, far apart from one another, they found themselves working increasingly together. They weren't alternating position as Benny's ace in the hole, they were a team now, no competition; just joining forces and trying to keep Mickey afloat. Now they organised joint-meetings, instead of eyeing each other suspiciously when they both showed up to the same meet, "fancy seeing you here" mixed with resentment from Ned's side that the job seemed open to involving strong-arming and, from Sid's, that it might involve some tedious lawyer's bargain. 

It changed things between them, meant fewer late night calls after other business and more meetings that ran late into the night, discussions dying out when either caught a glint of something in the others' eye. 

Sometimes Ned would talk Sid down from an argument with hands on his jacket, and a "nobody needs to die tonight, not on this count, trust me." 

He'd whisper, lips to Sid's ear, the endgame, the guy they were going to bring down instead of his henchmen or his lieutenant. And Sid would get his satisfaction, after a sort, even if he didn't get to pull the trigger, not that night anyway; and he'd leave Ned wrecked but still smiling and nobody would die when it wasn't their time. 

Neither of them ever quite stopped being surprised but it worked.


End file.
